“And how the hell am I supposed to know?” the woman snapped back.
“It’s your operation, not ours,” Mildred replied with a bite in her tone. “And what was that about abandoning the wags because they’ve crashed?” she added, referring to the garbled command from Correll that had emerged from the static and confusion of the radio.
“Shit, how do I know? It must be something that happened back there.”
“How about making it happen here?” the Armorer suggested, sighting the wag driven by Tulk and bearing Baron Tad Hutter begin to move out into the middle of the arena.
“What?”
“He’s moving, and we can’t keep going in circles forever,” J.B. said sharply. “So brace yourselves.”
With which the Armorer put his foot down hard to the floor of the wag and shot toward the moving wag. Tulk had moved forward cautiously, trying to sight the assault convoy as it came around again, and this had given J.B. the slight edge that he needed. As the baron’s wag moved outward, J.B. drove straight at it, flinging his wag to one side at the last moment so that it caught the baron’s wag with a broadside that made it skid in a circle, the front wing badly dented and bent in so that it trapped the front wheel and prevented it from rotating.
Behind the Armorer, the other Hellbenders’ wags skidded to a halt in order to avoid crashing into the leading vehicle, and the doors opened to discharge a crew hellbent on revenge.
“My God, John, you could have given us a little more warning that that,” Mildred gasped, the air driven from her by the impact.
“Had to be done,” the Armorer replied tersely. “Hutter was trying to get over to the other side.”
“Why the hell would he do that?”
“My guess is he wants to grab the women in the confusion—shit, looks like Jourgensen had a similar idea— get the fuck out!” the Armorer yelled as another wag appeared in the center of the arena through the mist and smoke.
J.B. grabbed Mildred and pulled her through the door of the wag, diving for cover and carrying her with him as Jourgensen’s wag pulled up too late to avoid a collision with the two wags that had already crashed into the middle of the arena.
“Tell me this isn’t going to get worse,” Mildred said as she saw Correll charging after the crashed wag, yelling at the top of his lungs.
“Dark night, I could tell you but I’d probably be lying,” the Armorer replied. “Come on, let’s see if we can get over to the other side. Ryan and Krysty were with Correll, so chances are they’re still over there somewhere,” he said, raising the M-4000 in order to cut a path through any firefight they may chance on. Mildred had her Czech-made ZKR to hand. It was hardly ideal conditions for a sharp-shooting target blaster such as the ZKR, but any handblaster would be effective in the close conditions.
Baron Al climbed from the wreck of his wag, still stunned by the impact of the crash, to come face-to-face with Tad Hutter, who had clambered from the wreckage of his own wag, leaving Tulk long chilled and impaled on the remains of the steering column, the dark metal protruding out of his back where the impact had driven it through his chest after the steering wheel had sheered off. He had died with the certain knowledge that his hated baron couldn’t get out of the conflict alive.
“Jourgensen, what the fuck are you playing at?” Hutter yelled, leveling his blaster.
Baron Al looked at him with surprise, as though he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing or hearing.
“Me?” he said blandly.
“Asshole,” Hutter muttered as he raised the blaster.
“No! Leave him—he’s mine!” came a yell from behind Jourgensen that made both barons look around in surprise.
Correll was charging across the open space, oblivious of the carnage around and the blaster shots that strayed across his path. He had his saber raised, and was upon the startled Jourgensen before he had a chance to move.
“We’ve waited so long for this, you pox-riddled bastard, but at last you’ll pay,” he screamed, long strings of saliva hanging from his jaws as he set to the baron with a vengeance, the saber chopping through Jourgensen’s flesh and bone, scoring nerves and gouging out muscle so that great gouts of blood flooded from his body. Jourgensen, still not fully alert and now aware only of his own defenselessness, realized too late what was happening to him, and went down under the frenzied attack.